JYJ’s Junsu to star in South Korean Death Note: The Musical

News about a Death Note musical for Japan and South Korea was first announced in December 2013. Now the upcoming Death Note: The Musical for South Korea have revealed the cast that will be playing the popular characters.

It was announced that Kim Junsu of K-pop boy group JYJ will be taking one of the lead spots, playing the strange yet wonderful character of sweet loving L. This is far from the first musical production that he has worked on as he made his name in the industry by cinching the lead roles in Korean adaptations of Mozart!, Tears Of Heaven, Elizabeth, and Dracula.

He will be joined by Jeong Sun Ah, who will be playing the female lead of Amane Misa. Junsa has worked with her on numerous occasions and she has starred in previous musicals such as Kinky Boots, Jesus Christ Superstar, Wicked.

Park Hye Na whose claim to fame was her cover for the official Korean version of Frozen’s Let It Go will be covering our first death god Rem, followed by Kang Hong Suk who will be portraying death god favourite Ryuk.

Korean musical legend Hong Kwang Ho was announced as playing our main character Yagami Light. Hong Kwang Ho has previously worked on Jack The Ripper, produced the hit soundtrack song Balbum Balbum for the historical drama Queen Seon Deok and became an overnight sensation with his Korean cover of “This is the moment” from Jekyll And Hyde: The Musical.

November 2014 saw a Japanese press conference showing the first line up of actors for the Japanese version of the musical. It spurred a large amount of interest from around the world with producers in New York creating audio demos, which are available on the YouTube channel AnimeLoversHK, with top Broadway stars Adrienne Warren known for her role as Dina from Orange Is The New Black, Jeremy Jordan who played Randy Garrity in the movie Joyful Noise, Carrie Manolakos who was known for her role as Elphaba in the musical Wicked,and Jarrod Spector whose claim to Broadway fame was playing Gavroche in the New York adaption of “Les Miserables”.

With a collection of very powerful singers and actors, along with the release of the demo songs, this is surely going to be one production that cannot be missed. It was noted that the musical will follow the path of the manga rather than that of the anime to release a true to story production. Exciting stuff for the anime, manga, and K-pop world right now. Check out the musical teaser below!